I'm sure that you are hearing this more and more but here goes.

Solar accounts is a fantastic package for keeping small businesses like myself ahead in terms of financial accounting.

Lots of us are freelancers and rely heavily on our the use of our Tablets in my case the IPAD Mini. This allows us to keep up to date outside the control of closed networks. A simple Solar app that would allow us to keep a handle on expenses and an App of this sort would be a great addition to a great product. I would be happy to pay for such an App and I'm sure that others would also.

This needs to be on your radar. Garry

I agree.

I would like to see Solar Accounts working in a similar way to the YNAB software I recommend to my clients for personal budgeting. If you take some time to understand how YNAB works, you'll see it's not a full blown Cloud accounting solution, it's somewhere in between. They use Dropbox as a go-between to synchronize data between a local computer file, and the iPad or IPhone application. I see no reason why you couldn't develop the same functionality for Solar Accounts.

Taking this step would also open the doorway to future development opportunities using the remote app (i.e. remote filing of expense claims with photos of receipts, remote raising invoices....etc). You could be just as functional as the Cloud without the massive development involved.

Would love to see developer feedback to this suggestion. I've always recommend Solar Accounts to my small business clients, but as time goes on they are asking for remote alternatives. I'd rather not send them to the Cloud just yet!

Hi A Knott,

Thanks for recommending Solar Accounts to your clients! Yes I agree more and more users want to access their accounting data remotely, but we aren't keen on using Dropbox as a solution. The main problem with Dropbox is that it can lead to file conflicts if two users edit the file at the same time. Here's an example of this happening with Solar Accounts:
http://www.solaraccounts.co.uk/forum/topic.php?TopicId=1816&Posts=1
Also, some novice users are not familiar with the concept of a 'file' and a 'folder', and having a purely cloud based solution would eliminate this learning curve.

Regards,

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the feedback.

I must say, I've not experienced those issues with the YNAB program I mentioned, which uses Dropbox as the conduit to update itself. I suspect the answer is in good App development, which utilizes an element of conflict management. This is merely one example, so many people are using this method that I can't agree with "it won't work so don't bother".

Regards

A.

Hi Angel,

Yes it is possible for the application to manage conflicts, but it requires significant amount of development effort. In fact, we think it would require more effort than an online-only solution. YNAB themselves have this to say about managing conflicts; "from the development side of things it was quite a beast": http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/2012/ynab-4-cloud-sync/

In our case the difficulty is compounded by the complexity of double-entry accounting compared to simple budgeting. Consider this example of a conflict that might occur in Solar Accounts if we used Dropbox:
1. John creates an account called 'Food Income'
2. Sally synchronises her Dropbox folder and can now see the 'Food Income' account
3. Sally disconnects from the Internet
4. Sally creates an invoice using the 'Food Income' account
5. John deletes the 'Food Income' account. (His system allows this because it doesn't know about Sally's invoice).
6. Sally re-connects to the internet and synchronises her Dropbox folder

What should the system do to resolve the conflict? It could delete the invoice, or leave it without an account, or undelete the account. I don't think there is no easy answer..

There are many other types of conflict. For example: What if there is a payment to a supplier that has been deleted? What if two different job have been edited to have the same name? Etc. Each question requires careful analysis, implementation and testing, and increases the complexity of the system.

The simplest solution is to avoid conflicts in the first place, by requiring internet connectivity and storing all data in the 'cloud'. As far as we can see, the value of allowing the user to have an offline option using Dropbox is not worth the extra development effort.

Regards,

Hi Mark,

Sorry to disagree, but I still think you're potentially over egging something that doesn't need to be as complex or as comprehensive.

All people really want to be able to do remotely is (a) raise invoices, and (b) enter a few expenses, so the complexities of the conflicts you describe shouldn't be a factor. I don't believe the objective of an app should be offer a fully fledged app that replaces the PC application. it should be an extension for convenience, not a replacement. Take a look at Xero for example, it offers only basic functionality via the App from a convenience point of view.

I wonder if you started to think 'less is more' it might bring this out of the 'too hard' category.

Cheers

Hello A Knott,

Yes a mobile/tablet app that allowed offline use could reduce the scope for conflicts by having reduced functionality. However, there would still be conflicts to manage (eg. what invoice number sequence should the app use when it is offline?)

More importantly, there are many users who want to keep two computers (not apps) synchronised and will expect the same functionality on both computers.

By the way it looks like Xero's app doesn't allow offline access:
https://community.xero.com/business/discussion/1449911

Regards,

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply.

There is no "offline" issue when it comes to Apps, only data synchronization.

In the case of YNAB, any changes made via the App are synchronized using Dropbox. This is a good example of a process you could follow for Solar Accounts to get a basic App up and running. If you preferred, you could chop it down to raising invoices only to start with, to make life easier. Build a system account called "Suspense" to manage any serious problems and, presto, you have a working solution. My students did a process flow along these lines as a school project then built it as a team....

The reason I suggested Xero in my later reply is for an entirely different reason, not to replace my good example with YNAB and Dropbox, but to give you a commercial example of how you don't need to offer the "entire software" via the App. Start small and offer just the important functions like invoicing, expenses.

Forgive me, but I'm concerned you've gone off track a bit. This post was about creating an App not an entire offline solution with multi user functionality. I appreciate that you'd like to resolve both challenges, but your responses are reading as though we are throwing the entire request (for an App) onto the fire because of the failure to solve larger related issues cannot be solved. If it's a question of priorities, then fair enough, but on the merits of what is doable - there is no logical argument not to do what so many others have achieved....even in University in the classroom.

Best of luck.

I very sorry to have had to move from Solar (to Xero) but I really need cloud based accounting and this gives me access from any safe computer, meaning I no longer have to lug a laptop around, and can work with multi-screens. Remote desktop is not really the solution - having no server support when I am a couple of thousand miles away.
The last 12 months suddenly became a nightmare on Dropbox, with numerous delayed syncs and conflicts (one major only saved by a backup) even when accessed by a single person. I can no longer recommend dropbox (I did not have the same problem with Microsoft's latest drive linked to 365).
The clincher has been an ipad app for instant access to information, copy documents linked to invoices as pdf's, and the ability to issue an immediate Invoice.
Please let me know if Solar goes to the Cloud, I will be straight back.

Hi Steve,

We're sorry to see you go! We will let you know if an online version of Solar Accounts is available in future.

Regards,